The Dangers of Using Filler

The picture demonstrates how clutter can hurt a photo. What is the subject of the picture? The shells? The seaweed? The texture of the rock? Or the spot of orange that draws your eye to the left side of the photo? I don’t even know, and I took it.

Writing works the same way, although this post is going to focus on a specific type of clutter, which I can filler.

I usually have several projects going at once, all in different stages. After the first draft, I set a manuscript aside for a month or more so that I can come back to it with a fresh eye. I do, however, make notes on possible changes and may even set myself a particular goal for that second draft (besides improving the story, which is always the primary goal).

I’m getting ready to do the second draft of Almost Home, which is a story about the sinking of the Andrea Doria. It’s too short for my audience, so my goal is to make it longer. Unfortunately, that isn’t as easy as some people might think. The challenge is to avoid additions that are mere filler.

Every scene in every novel should have a purpose, and adding length doesn’t qualify. A scene that doesn’t move the story along should develop a character or the setting. That’s also true of every word, phrase, and paragraph. Everything else is merely filler that will distract people from the story and maybe even obscure it the way the clutter does in the photograph at the top of this post.

In revising Almost Home, I could be tempted to expand the conversation during the first meal at sea. For example, the strangers who share the table with Becky and her family might give intimate details of their lives. Only a few of those details have anything to do with the story or are necessary to develop the characters, however, and those are already in the first draft. The other details are just filler. I can’t even let my shy protagonist tell about the events in her early life that will become important as the story progresses. That would be a boring info dump, Nobody likes an info dump and, even worse, it would actually be inconsistent with Becky’s character.

Or, since my protagonist gets separated from her family shortly after the accident, maybe I could tell about their different experiences. That would be fine if I used several points of view, but my gut tells me to concentrate on my main character.

Instead, I’ll try to further develop Becky’s experiences after the collision .

But it will still be a challenge to avoid filler.